If Lady Macbeth Were 6 Stories Tall and Made of Brick She Would Be the McKittrick Hotel: or How Distinctly Separate Worlds Facilitate Our Actions
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..."
Walking along 27th street, you stop in front of what seems to be just another Manhattan building. Drab walls, some scaffolding, and some spindly trees are all there is to see. Coming to the entrance, you realize it is a hotel. You are given a playing card which functions as your key and quickly ushered in. Traversing a dark, winding labyrinth to reach the hotel proper, you finally head up a flight of stairs and become enveloped in welcomed light, warmth, and music; you have just entered the Manderley bar.
From pitch black to warm reds, the bar is a welcome sight for a weary traveler such as yourself. While beautiful, the Manderley bar is not the main attraction of the McKittrick hotel. No sooner have you arrived than you are given a mask, told not to speak, and thrust into a dark, rickety elevator operated by a lone figure. The elevator stops.
“Everybody off.”
The first person leaves the elevator. You go to follow only to have the exit blocked by the operator. He chastises you.
"This is a journey best undertaken alone."
"I’ll go no more." (2.2.65)
He lets off the rest of the visitors intermittently at various floors. Finally, he allows you to leave the relative safety of the elevator, confused and lost, left alone to be sucked into the world of the McKittrick Hotel.
The most striking realization you will immediately notice is how those unimpressive brick walls, indistinguishable from all the other buildings of Manhattan, give no indication of what is to be seen within. Lit only by candles and lamps, the hotel has no distinct floor plan. Rather, the rooms are haphazardly laid out and connected, each intricately detailed and containing its own subtle mysteries. Save for the main members of the event, everyone’s face is obscured by pure white masks, and there is no sound save for an omnipresent foreboding soundtrack. Every patron is free to enjoy the hotel however they would like, but there is one feeling all inside share, that this bizarre world bears no relation to our own.
“This is more strange than such a murder is.” (3.4.98-99)
This reaches one of the central themes of underworlds, that they are separate from “the casual and confused region of everyday existence” (Berger, 12). The McKittrick functions as what Berger refers to as a “heterotopia,” a type of second world we can physically step into and visit, leaving when our time is done. Those brick walls that prevent us from seeing into the world also provide the opposite, they prevent the events in the McKittrick from seeping back into our regular lives.
By entering the hotel, we become separated from the normal world. By donning the masks, we momentarily shed our former selves, losing all our connections to our previous life, enveloped solely in the world of the McKittrick. It is a representation of the mind of Macbeth, his own personal underworld, in which every resident is “in some way deficient” (Berger, 36). While not residents, we are also influenced by the world, allowing it to “pour [its] spirits in [our] ears” (1.5.29).
“O, full of scorpions is my mind.” (3.2.41)
This allows us to enjoy the world unfettered by our daily lives. In the hotel, we are anonymous and lost, and in this anonymity comes freedom. Actions taboo in the real world feel natural in this separate world. We may look through the players’ private belongings, read their notes, and infiltrate their bedrooms. We can stand and observe an orgy, or witness a murder. This barrier preventing cross contamination with our daily lives allows us to indulge in “our black and deep desires” (1.4.58). Rather than punish, the underworld rewards the inquisitive mind.
“I dare do all that may become a man.” (1.7.51)
In a sense we are just like Aeneas, who scoured the Underworld looking for answers to "truth-entangling riddles," or Dante, who journeyed through Inferno to understand the nature of his life and the beyond. Just as in these underworlds, once the production is over, that is to say when the McKittrick has performed its “functions, it becomes inadequate and its creator turns us out” (Berger, 36). We come from the McKittrick having gained more than we have lost. In interacting with the otherworldly McKittrick, some of its power has rubbed off onto our hands, and "these hands [will] ne'er be clean" (5.1.45). While we can return home, wash the X off our hands, and reintegrate into society, the lasting impact of that distinct and separate underworld are unforgettable.
!["these hands [will] ne'er be clean"](https://i.imgur.com/fZ8ORjV.gif){kind=link}
